Western calligraphy developed initially from ancient roman times until the invention of the printing press by Guthenberg. During that time, scribes copied by hand books and documents using pens or quills with a flat tip. Because of the flat tip, as they wrote, the characters would naturally assume thin and thick areas. Although the advent of the printing press and typography temporary deemphasized calligraphy, Edward Johnston (1872-1944) rediscovered calligraphy and published a book which has had a profound effect on font design principals of the 20th and 21th century.
Nowadays serious font designers have knowledge of calligraphy that gives them an understanding of the basis of font anatomy, and the reasons for its contrasts and structure. Accordingly, new fonts are being developed with refined contrasts in thickness that strongly enhance their legibility and personality in both serif and sans serif fonts.
Although one can read about calligraphy, there is little practical leaning without the experience of properly handling the calligraphic flat brush or flat tip pen and learning to feel the characters unravel in different ways. Calligraphy must be practiced to develop a deeper understanding and facilitate creative freedom for font design.
Today's design and illustration software often contain tools that function as calligraphic brushes. These typically work by defining a fixed width and angle of a virtual brush. This way, it is possible to draw calligraphy and edit the shape. However, these tools do not allow the liberty of a real flat brush or flat tip pen. With a flat paintbrush, one can start to draw a character with one inclination and finish with a different one. Additionally, with a real brush, it is possible to press harder or lighter to achieve a different thickness along the same stroke. Furthermore, one can lift and turn the paintbrush to finish off serifs. All this can be done in a natural instinctive way that works as an extension of the hand, focused only on the result.
Applicants recognize that this liberty in controlling the flat brush is key. Not only does it allow mistakes that are very important to the educational process, but also it enables experts to finish their finest details. That is, expert calligraphers tend to create better calligraphy and do it substantially faster when done by hand. Adjusting thickness and angle between each stroke in a computer is extremely time consuming, and the inability to rotate the brush as one is drawing is a major shortcoming. Therefore, the existing software is inadequate for the educational process and inefficient for the expert. Thus, there is a need for a software-based system that emulates the functionality of a flat brush. The present invention fulfills this need among others.